We Revisit "Flavor of Love" to Understand When Mankind Fell into Ruin

The End of Civilization started with Pumpkin and New York

Recently my wife texted me to tell me that she wanted to revisit a dating show that we used to watch on VH1. I started to rack my brain trying to figure out which one she wanted to watch. Now, for some that don't remember, VH1 used to show videos, then, after that, all they showed were various dating shows featuring former music stars, then people that were on those people's shows.

After trying to guess, and not be able to get it right, she told me she wanted to watch "Flavor of Love". I was so stoked by this news. Of all the dating shows we watched before we had kids, "Flavor of Love" was, by far, the best and most trashy, which is why everyone watches reality TV. This show used to crack me up, and the very next day, I searched all of our TV channels and our streaming services, and I finally found full episodes on YouTube. I texted my wife a video of the opening of the first season, and she texted back very excited.

That night we started to watch the first season of "Flavor of Love", and all the great, funny, disgusting and ridiculous stuff came flooding back. This show has the nastiest, loudest and wildest contestants to ever appear on a game show. I swear, the people on the show forget that they are on national TV. They say some of the wildest, and dumbest shit in the world. It is crazy. Another thing that came back was all the crazy ass challenges they had to do to "win" a date with Flavor Flav. It is truly insane. They have had to do stuff like, create and run a "restaurant" within Flav's mansion, set up a hot tub park with something that explains their situation, they do a roast of the other girls, they meet the families, which always turns into some crazy as drama, especially with Sister Patterson(look her up), the list could go on and on. It is wild.

But, the thing I kept coming back to that was truly astonishing, these girls are all competing to be Flavor Flav's girlfriend! What the hell! For those of you who may not know who he is, he is the world's greatest hype man. He was one of the founding members of one of, if not the, best rap groups ever, Public Enemy. He had a very fruitful music career, and with that, he decided he needed to do a dating show on VH1! I say again, What the hell! No wonder Chuck D really doesn't want anything to do with him anymore.

What is really upsetting about the show and Flavor Flav is how shallow he, and the contestants, can be. Now, I am not the world's most attractive man, but Flavor Flav makes me look like Idris Elba or Ryan Gosling. I mean, he is tiny, he has a real wiry frame, he is loud and he is mean. He is ugly on both the outside and the inside. He is judging these girls on their looks, and my wife and I both see him and think, who is he to judge. I have respect for what he did as a member of Public Enemy, but this show really soured me on him as a person. He is also super weird about touching his face, and the spelling of his rap name. He has some of the wildest quirks that I have ever seen. Whenever someone touches his face, he loses his god damn mind. You'd think they were going to slap him. Then, if you misspell his name, be prepared to be taken down a couple notches. He gets so mad, and it is such a small thing to get that angry about.

All that is bad, but the worst thing of all is the way he treats these ladies. He is always telling them to "crowd around your man", and almost forcing them to kiss him, and calling out their breath or their looks or their appearance. Every time he dos this, I yell at the screen, yo, look in the mirror my dude.

Even with all this garbage, that is not enough to keep me from continuing to revisit this show. No matter how awful Flav is, or hot ridiculous the challenge, the nicknames or anything else that goes on this show, I still am excited to watch it again. As I write this, I am watching episode 7 of the third and final season with my wife because she has the day off work. It is truly the best trashy reality show out there. Hell, it might be the best trash reality show that has ever existed. It is just so wild and crazy and stupid and fun. My wife and I have been so into the show, we have decided that, after we finish up all of "Flavor of Love", we are going to watch all the other VH1 reality shows that we used to watch regularly.

Seriously people, if you want to see how crazy reality dating shows used to be just as short as 7 or 8 years ago, go watch some "Flavor of Love". I feel like you might be offended at first, but then you will get sucked in to how nuts and bizarre and goofy it all is. I'm so glad that this show is back in my life. It is a nice escape for 40 minutes to watch this utter nonsense. I love it so much.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He forgot to mention that Flav is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No Sonic Youth, The Smiths, or Cyndi Lauper, but Flav is there. 

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